


A Gryffindor Walks Into a School...

by fizzyblogic (phizzle)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, McFly
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Gen, WIP Amnesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-12
Updated: 2011-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-14 16:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phizzle/pseuds/fizzyblogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McFly at Hogwarts. Basically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Gryffindor Walks Into a School...

1996

"Did you hear about Mr Ollivander?"

"Did you hear about Mr Fortescue?"

"My aunt said she saw a Death Eater in her garden, but my uncle says it was just someone stopping to steal some herbs."

"Mr Vior's just not as _good_ , my brother got his wand in ten minutes —"

The Hogwarts Express is packed. Tom finds space in a compartment after trying almost every single other one, and hefts his trunk onto the luggage rack with the help of a third-year. A girl about his age comes in a few minutes later and says, "Is it all right if I sit here?"

"Yeah, 'course." He moves his kitten onto his lap to make room.

"Nice cat," the girl says as she shoves her trunk onto the rack. "Are you a first-year too?"

"Yeah, thanks. I'm Tom, this is Marvin." He holds one of Marvin's paws up like he's waving. The girl giggles.

"I'm Giovanna." She sits, and as though she's been waiting for months to talk to someone about this, she says, "What House do you think you'll be in? My family's been in almost all of them so I'm not sure which I'll be Sorted into, but I really want to be in Hufflepuff like my dad." She said it all in one breath, so she inhales deeply. Tom waits, but she doesn't say anything else.

"I don't know," he answers. "My family's mostly Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors. Maybe we'll both be in Hufflepuff." He smiles, and she smiles back. "Hey, I've got some cards, d'you want to play Exploding Snap?"

They spend the rest of the journey playing Snap and talking about their families — they're both half-bloods, plenty of Muggles and Muggle-borns at family reunions — and after lunch, a second-year in their compartment asks if they want to play Gobstones. She's a Ravenclaw, and as they play she tells them about feasts and what the teachers are like.

"Professor Snape's the Potions master," she says, rolling a Gobstone. "He's horrible, stay out of his way if you can. Professor McGonagall's not bad. Flitwick's the best, he's Head of my House. Just be glad you weren't here last year, Umbridge was awful." She shudders.

"Have you seen Harry Potter, Izzy?" Giovanna asks her, knocking a Gobstone out of the circle.

"Once or twice, yeah. You sort of pass everyone in the corridors eventually." She scores a direct hit. "He seems nice. Didn't you see him when he went past, just after we set off?"

"No," Giovanna says, dismayed, "I was still trying to find somewhere to sit."

"My mum always believed him," Tom pipes up. "About You-Know-Who, I mean."

They all go still and look around. The air feels a little more chilly. "My dad didn't," Giovanna whispers. "But nobody really wants it to be true, do they?"

"Of course not," Izzy says. "The Ministry must have been terrified, making someone like Umbridge Headmistress."

"I never heard that!" Tom stares at her, aghast. "But Dumbledore's Headmaster again now, isn't he?"

"Oh, yes, of course. He's great. Mad, but still great."

When the train pulls up in Hogsmeade, Tom and Giovanna head with Izzy into the crowd. They pass a mousy-haired adult witch, and Tom hears someone say, "I heard she's an Auror." Someone else said, "I heard there's all sorts of protections on Hogwarts now, no wonder there are Aurors, too."

"Where's Professor Grubbly-Plank?" Izzy's trying to look over everyone's heads. "She should be here, or Hagrid should. Someone always takes the first-years by the lake."

Tom stands on tiptoes, but he can't see the enormous gamekeeper he's heard about. He can't see any other adults, either.

"Excuse me," Izzy turns around and steps up to the Auror. "Could you tell me where the first-years are supposed to go? These are my friends," she indicates Tom and Giovanna.

"Hagrid's meant to be taking you," the Auror says to them, kindly. "I don't know what's keeping him. You'd better find a Prefect."

They look around. There are knots of uncertain first-years in the eddying crowd, the platform emptying quickly. "Hey," Izzy catches a sixth-year Ravenclaw Prefect, "do you know where the first-years are supposed to go?"

He shrugs. "Sorry, I don't know where Hagrid is."

"Come on." Izzy leads Tom and Giovanna over to a seventh-year wearing a 'Head Girl' badge. "Excuse me, but these two are first years, and —"

"No one knows where Hagrid is," the Head Girl says. "I think you'd better just use the carriages."

By this time, Marvin has started struggling in Tom's arms. He can only hold him with one hand, since the other is pulling his trunk. "Just as long as we do _something_ soon," Tom says to Giovanna, moving his arm to prevent Marvin from jumping to the ground. "Marv, stop it."

Izzy takes them over to one of the last horseless carriages. They get in, and Marvin jumps to the floor of it to sniff around. "Don't you be getting out," Tom warns him. "We're not there yet."

The ride up to the castle is dark, but exciting. The gates are huge and imposing, the grounds vast, and when Tom sees the outline of Hogwarts, he scoops Marvin up to show him. "Look," he says, "there it is!" Marvin growls at the castle.

Izzy leads the way up the steps when they get there, and they pass a tall, stern-faced witch in green robes. "Professor McGonagall, Hagrid wasn't there to bring the first-years," she says, slightly breathless. "I brought these two, but I don't know where the others are."

"Thank you, Miss Johnston. I will look after them."

"Yes, Professor." She smiles at them, and disappears through the enormous front doors.

"You were meant to come over the lake," Professor McGonagall says to them, and her lips press into a thin line. "It's not like Hagrid to be late. Come with me." She takes them inside.

The entrance hall is cavernous and grand, and Tom cranes his neck trying in vain to see the ceiling. "There could be bats up there," he whispers to Giovanna, "and we'd never know."

"Shh," she answers. There's a clamour coming from behind two tall doors off to the side, but Professor McGonagall leads them into a smaller room next to it. "Wait here, please. Do not leave this room. I will fetch the other first-years."

Tom wishes he hadn't left his trunk in the carriage like Izzy told him to — "They take it up for you, don't worry." — so he could sit on it. He leans against the wall instead, hoping the ghosts don't come through it. One does drift through the opposite wall, looking startled to see them. "Hello, new students!" he beams at them. "I do hope I see you in Hufflepuff!"

"Er," is Tom's reply.

Professor McGongall returns a few minutes later, leading the other first-years. She gives a 'Welcome to Hogwarts' speech and after another short wait, she finally leads them into the Great Hall.

It is everything Tom was told it would be. It's even more amazing to see than to hear about, though, and he doesn't know where to look first. He feels a hand grasping for his own and looks round; Giovanna is staring up at the ceiling, looking overwhelmed, and he takes her hand and squeezes it.

They stand, still holding hands, as the Sorting Hat sings about unity and standing together. Tom looks around at the House tables, trying to see if Harry Potter is at the Gryffindor table. One by one, the first-years with A-E surnames get Sorted, and then Professor McGonagall calls, "Falcone, Giovanna!"

Tom gives Giovanna's hand another squeeze, and she walks up to the stool. The Hat is on her head for only a few seconds when it shouts, "HUFFLEPUFF!"

She smiles at Tom as she skips over to the cheering Hufflepuff table, sitting next to 'Billings, Daisy', who had been Sorted before her. "Fletcher, Thomas!" Professor McGonagall called.

Tom walks to the stool, sits, and the Sorting Hat is placed on his head. "Ah, what have we here," a small voice says. "Fairness, honesty, a hard worker. Bravery. Oh yes, there's a lot of that. GRYFFINDOR!" it shouts for the Hall to hear.

Tom had been sure, absolutely sure, he'd be a Hufflepuff. He stands up, too stunned to take the Sorting Hat off. Professor McGonagall takes it from him, and Tom makes his way to the cheering and whistling Gryffindor table, sadly smiling at Giovanna as he passes.

The first course is almost over when a silvery wolf slips through a side door and over to the top table, where the teachers are sitting. It says something to Professor Dumbledore, and then vanishes. "What was that?" Tom asks the boy he's sitting next to, another first-year. He shrugs, mouth full of potatoes.

Harry Potter walks into the Hall five minutes later, grim-faced, covered in blood, and in Muggle clothes. Tom's eyes water as he stares at him, forgetting to blink. He looks like he's just had a fight with a Death Eater, and won. Tom has the strangest feeling, that if Harry Potter asked, he'd fight any amount of Death Eaters too.

He hopes he doesn't have to, though.

*

1997

Tom slips down the corridor that only appears every other Wednesday, and into one of the three rooms it leads to. There's a cupboard here with a space big enough for two people to hide in and play a quiet game. He and Gi had found it the year before, during one of their rainy Sunday explorations of the castle. He slides into the gap between it and the wall, sits down, and then he sees that someone is already there.

"Oh," the someone says. It's a first-year, a Slytherin boy Tom has seen around in the corridors. He's always looking at the floor. "I didn't know anyone else knew about this place."

"Me and my best friend found it last year. It's all right, though," he adds, as the boy starts to get up. "Okay if I hide here too?"

"Yeah." There's a pause. "I'm Harry Judd."

"Tom Fletcher. Who are you hiding from?"

"Everyone in my House." He picks at his robes. "Everyone else, really."

"Why everyone else?"

Harry looks at him. "I'm a _Slytherin_. Every other Slytherin wants me to do what they're doing, and everyone else assumes I want to ... do that stuff too." He grimaces.

"I take it you're not on the Muggles-are-scum train," Tom says.

"No. I'm ambitious and I like to win, and I'm pureblood, but that doesn't make me a Muggle-hater." He whispers it, glancing around. Tom hopes fervently the Carrows haven't put some sort of spell on this room to report conversations like this. "People always assume stuff about me because my family's always been in Slytherin. We're just — competitive, ambitious, that sort of thing, what's wrong with that?"

"You have a point." Tom hasn't really thought about it before. "There isn't anything really wrong with being a Slytherin."

Harry suddenly hugs him. "Thank you," he breathes, "you're the first Gryffindor who's been nice to me."

Tom hugs back,

 

 

 

\------------------------------  
I had vague plans! Including Tom and Gi trying to fight in the battle, and being sent home because _tiny children_. Danny was meant to start school in Tom's second year, but he's Muggle-born so he didn't get his letter; he starts in 98, when McGonagall's Headmistress and sends the letters out that should have gone the year before. Danny's in Hufflepuff. Georgia starts that year, too, and she's in Hufflepuff with him. They get on well. Dougie starts the next year, and immediately gets put in Gryffindor. He makes friends with Tom basically because they sit next to each other at the feast, and then hang out in the Gryffindor Common Room.

When Tom and Gi are in seventh year (and they've been on-off dating since fourth year), Tom, Harry and Dougie advertise in the Great Hall for people who'd be interested in joining a band. Danny turns up with a guitar, and that's all they need. Band shenanigans! Cuteness with Harry and Izzy getting together in her seventh and his fifth years! Adorableness with Dougie's massive crush on Harry and Harry's on Dougie and their eventually poly V! Then when they're a famous wizard band, and they're in their 20s, Dougie meets a Muggle artist called Lara and falls for her too. ♥____♥


End file.
